Empowerment- A Review and Reflection Strong view on something long due By balayogi [ balayogiv@gmail.

com ] Let us move from a decade of decay towards a direction of development. Let us move from dependence on entitlements to empowerment. I have been reading almost for the past one decade a lot of excellent expositions on empowerment from men and women of eminence, expertise and experience and some of them have made certain statements that can easily be included into the anthology of quotable quotes. Many of them have emanated, especially from people with a proven and successful track record of empowering a group of new generation of educated executives, entrepreneurs, educators etc Though I read with interest all these, I have this bad habit of not letting anything unassimilated and untransformed by my mind and pen. So I feel compelled to pen down some of my observations. While some of them noted that empowerment in the 21st century is holistic: it is centered in groups or organizations, rather than individuals. A collective vision or goal must encourage and engage the spirit of the individuals involved in the group. Here empowerment shifts from individual-centered to collectivecentered. A process of including everyone in a collective vision, helping everyone to lead towards that vision, planning, acting and learning together to build an empowered society where there is a feeling of collective empowered identity.

While another group of essays contended that the concept of empowerment implicit in empowerment projects of the past is no longer adequate for dealing with the complexities of present day lifestyles. So empowerment in reality rests in individuals who must be capable of taking charge of almost all aspects of their lives and also inspiring and influencing others to solve problems and achieve goals. Thus each individual who is empowered must have a vision and ability to master the forces of change. Thus empowerment will be a bottomup transformation of fluid, all-inclusive, action oriented force that is fueled by shared power.

Although various scholars and authors differ in their scope and focus when describing changes required to bring about the empowerment most of them in fact unwittingly have advocated growth or its manifestation in terms a competitive and self centered approach than a community based commitment. Empowerment is rather a multi layered and complex structure. Empowerment in general can be said to be at the individual level, regional level, national level and ideologically identifying groups with similar tastes, life styles, aspirations etc socially, culturally, educationally and intellectually. Identities, associations, grouping etc have get more complicated and multiplied in number all the more now thanks to the internet and enhanced more vigorously by social networks. The most positive aspect of this vast opportunity for horizontal interaction globally has reduced to a very great extent the perils of identity crisis which forced youth to be isolated within their locally or regionally accepted modes of identity. At the individual level empowerment is what each of us summons from within. In this respect, certain qualities that we set as benchmark for empowerment will be found distributed among many people who in community are expected to be accountable, responsible and concerned about vital issues, empowerment thus is rather fluid concept focusing on those behaviors which propel the development of society as a whole. In brief empowered society can emerge only when there is enough encouragement and active promotion of empowerment with adequate propaganda and publicity about all that leads to empowerment. But for this to happen, we must be clear about the fact that empowerment is a process starting from the personal empowerment which must be a manifestation of a comprehensive mixture of spiritual, humane, economic and psychological blossoming of the individual promoting important values of trust, commitment, sharing, and collective ownership leading to empowerment of the whole society. It cannot be created by any single straightjacketed formula or prescription. We must realize that empowerment is a process and not a product. It is something that is achieved over time, not overnight. It is process but with a specific desired outcome. It is a process that starts from a mere permission and goes on to assume power. It is a process that gets done not by conversion and subversion but through communication and illumination. It is a process that we must ensure is as equable and as humane as possible. The grand motive force behind this process

must be to change for the better and learn how to multiply the positive aspects of it with wisdom and mercy. It is a process in which all must realize the sacred bond tying each of us to the rest of existence not necessarily through any particular organized or institutionalized set up even in matters of religion as in that case it leads inevitably to further complications of identity and rivalry both healthy and unhealthy among different institutions and organizations.

It is a process of collective endeavor as many great events in the history have proved. So the driving motto must be in modern times network and organize people with similar thinking and willingness to support and to steer ahead without upsetting long cherished traditional, cultural, moral and regional value systems. It is process which does not make a group of privileged patrons, we may term as tomorrow-makers, decide for the rest and makes the rest mere spectators of their own future. It is a process that does not constrict the possibilities in lives. It is a process that must create situations conducive to facilitate the evolutionary migration of vast majority of human beings through different life conditions, value systems etc to lead a better life. It is a process that is local and global; internal and external; bottom-up and topdown; materialistic involving improvement of physical comforts, improved economic conditions and survival tools along with unfettered growth and opportunities ; development of intellectual activities with enough room for expressing emotions; scope to exhibit a variety of social and cultural styles and types; both physical and psychological space and freedom to pursue in an unbiased manner different paths to experience and express spiritual aspirations. All these to be done without any parochial or sectarian ism be it political or religious with a mutual respect for one another and reciprocal encouragement from one another leading to real empowerment with peace unhindered by any identity either of the individual or group. We must realize therefore that it requires experimentation and improvisation rather than following an established game plan. It is a process that does not rely on the hypotheses that current trends will carry forward into the future at roughly the same rate and it must note that this is as wrong as the clich that history repeats itself because whenever or wherever it has repeated the

manifestations and impacts were totally different. The fault lies as the saying goes "The difficulty in times of turbulence is not the turbulence, but to respond with yesterday's logic." Peter. It is a process based not on technological and economic trends but social, spiritual and cultural factors. Following valueless but mere money oriented economic growth will lead to material prosperity with different types of psychological, emotional, cultural imbalances leading to various types of social maladjustments that many of the economically well-developed western societies are suffering from. We have a great advantage in the sense that India is not yet totally empowered, as we have not started it yet in a big way. We have the opportunity to study and learn from other societies which are empowered in different aspects and avoid the mistakes that they have committed and take care to include the things that they have omitted so that though our empowerment is delayed it is highly dazzling in its entire splendor. Being a country that is known for its pride of ancestry we must begin to nurture a perfect and pleasant present only then we shall have hope for the future. Having said that it is a process we need to get it started seriously with a vision and plan with proper approach. By approach is meant not any single or even multiple preset patterns as that would be contradicting what we said earlier but a broad atlas of areas of operation and focus which can enhance life in its totality namely the three major aspects the physical, mental and spiritual. Broadly speaking this atlas would be outlining of a concept of empowerment giving enough room for adjusting and scope for learning to adapt to restrictions imposed due to constantly changing and evolving global influences and local impediments and interferences by the groups, which feel that they may lose their importance due to empowerment. Once with this type of atlas a proper approach is taken care of at the individual level there would emerge a comprehensive contentment and confidence coupled with a sense of caring and sharing attitude which would automatically take care of the overall social welfare. Of course all these must be followed up with a missionary zeal. When we seriously start these types of ventures with intense totality and total intensity and launch on the path even before any tangible improvements manifest, the lotus-eaters and luddites will automatically inundate with all sorts of praises and criticisms. These need not deter us; On the contrary, it is a welcome trend. In our tradition, we have inherited many things out of uncritical love and omitted many things out of unloving criticism. Having decided what has to be done for empowerment, then we must also focus our energies on the group to be empowered on a priority basis. Obviously the

septuagenarians and octogenarians do not need empowerment; they need only care and respect.

So from a national perspective on empowerment we must also chose the most potential and vital group of demography which is going to take care of our great country in future. Empowerment of this group must get started as a vital sociological movement, not simply an approach or strategy. It has to be developed almost as an ideology to be followed for a decent future survival. Then slowly but steadily it will catch up like wild fire. In our country anything, however serious or silly, unless it is pursued with a fanatical zeal backed by massive publicity will fizzle out as one more group emerging to spoil the prospects of our political parties who are keen on keeping both empowerment and development at bay for their selfish ends. Making change in the world is a complex undertaking, particularly when the aim is to change systems and communities. In any such undertaking there will be coaches filled with luddities, status quo lovers etc who will be not only be unwilling to get connected to other coaches of the train of progress but may even try to derail the train itself. The engine and its driver must be very careful about the journey and clear about the destination. They must be very careful about the process used, the relationship between collaborative and participatory groups and clear about the target population. In brief every one involved in the process must be clear about one thing that empowerment unambiguously is a process designed to help people help themselves and improve their lives . Empowerment evolves through the interplay of natural talents, opportunities, challenges and motivations etc Empowerment, even if does not lead one to the decision making chair will at least lead one to the window of the decision making room to know what types of decisions are being taken. Having said all these we must realize the fact that the greatest advantage of India is that it has the largest population of youth and that youth are the critical mass that needs to be empowered.

Unfortunately the most pathetic situation is our apathy to youth and their development, especially the vast majority of middle class and low income group youths who are bubbling with energy and willing to get empowered. The fact is

there has never been a clear cut agenda for starting a process of empowerment of youth that is why only the privileged youth of some well established politicians and businessmen alone emerge empowered while the rest of the youth are used, or to be more precise, rather misused to further the development these privileged youths. It is pathetic that the governments, political parties, along with the abetting bureaucrats and the sponsoring business communities, all these of course form a minority in terms of number, spend in millions on projects to publicize linguistic chauvinism, activities aimed promote capturing votes of the illiterate masses and many such futile activities while the majority of youth are mere passive spectators of these puerile and putrefying activities. The youth must demand more opportunities to learn; more institutes of very high quality higher education which should become brand names of higher education; more institutes for Research and Development activities on many fields; more attention to protect our nations environment and preserve its natural resources; promote agricultural growth; demand economic development and availability of all facilities for leading a decent life in all the rural areas. When many these aspects are taken care of automatically there would be economic development and social welfare. The greatest danger to our future is apathy."-Jane Goodall